46 Top Entrepreneurs Confess Their Biggest Selling Mistake

Are you a beginning blogger that is struggling to earn more money with your blog but you just don't know how to do it?

Do you ever get that hopeless feeling every time when you read how easy it was for your favorite blogger to successfully launch a product? Many times influencers and gurus from any niche appear to be infallible.

That's why I decided to ask 46 top entrepreneurs the following question:

What was the biggest mistake you made when you first started selling a course or product online?

After reading their answers I can tell you one thing, my dear readers: don't worry! Even the top experts did some huge errors when they were beginning bloggers, so there isn't any reason for which you can't become successful like they are.

The answers I received are arranged by category since I discovered 9 common mistakes:

To that end, over time what I have learned is the site that was launched could have been used as a big part of my company’s marketing strategy.

This is because there is much invaluable information online that could tell me how to post engaging content. Engaging content would capture my audience attention after the target audiences were identified.

Additionally, I found that I would need to invest some of the funds to use some of the paid marketing channels. Paid campaigns could help with the advertising of my products on the site. By using these marketing campaigns, I would also have an opportunity to increase conversion rates.

For example, if you decide to sell a course and your customers have a hard time setting up their accounts, retrieving their account confirmation emails or understanding how to use your membership site or learning management system and they have to each contact customer service for 15-30 minutes and you have not calculated that cost into your course price you could lose a lot of money quickly.

A) It is much harder to get a buyer for your product initially than it is to get them to continue buying from you,

B) JV partners who you get to promote for you will not promote if they are not getting a good CPC/ROI (Cost per click, return on investment), one way to beef that up is to provide commissions on multiple products,

C) if you are not earning a lot per customer (going ‘wide’ not just ‘deep’, meaning really focus on monetizing current customers) you won’t have the metrics to use paid traffic (Facebook ads etc.) as you would be outbid by your competitors who do have the metrics and finally,

D) you need to have some recurring monthly offer as this allows you to scale and continue to support your product. It is hard to sell that on the first product, so it is better to sell a 1 time payment upfront and then a upsell to your monthly recurring.

The other ‘critical’ mistake, was that I did not segment my list*! This is the biggest income killer. Initially I just built 1 list and had no idea who purchased what product from me.

You need to be able to promote your offers with ‘Marketing Automation’ to the right segment. This means people only get relevant offers.

The other key here is to ‘Onboard’ your new customers. Provide them with training based on where they are in their business and how they plan to use your product. This also allows you to offer them beneficial products from your partners (to earn affiliate income and increase the value per customer.)

This service provides the 4 key pillars for anyone to manage their online business. This is no longer an option in 2016, it is now vital to provide the level of service that will allow you to scale to 6 figures a month

You want to first grow a following of people that see and believe you know what you're talking about to give you the best chance to make sales… but at some point, you have to launch it.

When that time is will be different for everyone… but if you feel you have a goof following on your blog, you are getting your posts shared nicely across SM on a regular basis, then I think at that time is good to launch a “starter” product.

Something low-priced, that shows you know what you're talking about and helps you test the waters to see how well your following reacts to you “selling”.

If the results are positive, THEN you work on a full course at a higher price.

But I must have spent two weeks tweaking the sales page, editing and re-editing the copy, creating the graphics and images to go along with it all… and at the end of the day, I probably wasted a week and a half of selling just so I could quench my silly perfectionism.

Get over yourself, get it done, and forget being perfect. Be like Nike and just (freaking) do it

If you warm your audience up, offer great value and build up win/win relationships, that is far more important than having a huge disengaged list. Now I have a separate highly targeted list of under 1,000 that I regularly sell to.

~ Zac is an entrepreneur and a super affiliate, with nearly 20 years of experience in the online marketing space.

The biggest mistake I made when selling a course online was not knowing my exact audience well enough.

I knew exactly who my audience was, but being in the “online marketing” and “blogging” space, I was going after a more newbie market that didn't have money to invest in a new training, course or product.

As I continued to learn more about this newer audience and how to cater to them, I also learned a few things along the way that I can pass on to you.

Webinars are great — Yes, they probably aren't for everyone, but if you are going to sell a product in the $497+ range, you really need to get in front of people for 30-60 minutes and build that trust factor with them. Some people have seen 20%+ conversions when doing live webinars. Also, you can automate this process after you do your first webinar, but they did tend to convert at lower prices.

JV partnerships are also great — Creating a product is one thing, marketing is another. Whether through affiliate marketing or JV webinars, you need to connect with other sites and tap into new audiences outside of your own. Not only will this cut your costs back heavily, it will also allow you to increase costs at the same time. If you need some tips on how to connect with industry leaders, be sure to check out this article.

Ask what your audience wants — The first versions of products are always going to be rough. As you build your customer base, you will learn a lot from them, and don't forget to ask about what they want. Once you have something in place and added upon it with recommendations from your users, you can then do another launch with all the upgrades and new services in place.

I put a lot of time and effort into creating what I thought was a brilliant product.

I did a ton of what’s regarded as best practice marketing: the whole product launch formula approach. But sales were disappointing. At the end of the day, the core of the problem was that I hadn’t hit the right spot for my audience.

The product was great, but not what they wanted. Nowadays I always do two things before investing heavily in product creation.

I always survey my audience to find out if they want the product and exactly what they want from it. Then I always launch a paid pilot first to make sure people are willing to actually buy it.

Once I have enough people signed up for the pilot, I start creating the material, not before.

~ Sharyn is a business learning consultant. She provides marketing content for coaches, consultants, and educators.

I had quite a few failures online before I found my sweet spot. And in almost every case, the biggest reason was lack of enough research.

In one case, it was a matter of not thoroughly researching the nature of the competition in the market. The big players had massive resources at their disposal for marketing and SEO. I was a newbie with what I thought was a great idea, according to my keyword research.

Well, keyword research is just a little portion of the research you need to do before getting started. In fact, I don't believe it's as important now as it once was. In the case of my current business, people don't specifically search for my type of products online.

In another case, my mistake was not doing enough research into my target audience's needs and challenges. I thought I knew what they wanted, but I was off the mark.

The problem was that I listened to my most vocal customers exclusively. It's great to get feedback from your customers, but you can't assume they speak for the majority.

I'd gotten a couple of requests for courses on a specific topic, jumped into creating that course, launched it, and…. I sold about half of what I normally do. Ok, so maybe some people wouldn't consider that a total flop or a huge mistake. But it taught me to look at more than customer feedback.

Now I also look at trends in past sales of different course topics, and I look at hot topics in my customers' market. Sometimes, customers don't know what they want until you offer it, so your research has to involve keeping ahead of your market. That way, you can tell them what will help them solve their problems.

Luckily, when it comes to selling a course online you have the freedom to fail without it having a tragic effect on your finances. If you can confirm the demand for your core idea first, with some market and competitor research, you can always test and tweak it as you go along and get more feedback.

Lesson learned:Don't just try to find a bunch of people interested in what you have to offer. You still need to learn if they are actually going to buy it.

Mistake #2: Picking the wrong partner.

Another problem that contributed to sink the business was the partner I chose to work with.

Our partnership started wonderfully. I was very much impressed by his skills, willing to do more and going beyond what was originally planned out.

I remember telling myself: “I’ve nailed the partner picking part!! Couldn't have found a better guy to join me.”

Nevertheless, just like with the best marriages, we only really start getting to know the other person when darker days arrive.

As soon as my partner saw the panoply of obstacles that arose along with amount of extra work and grind needed to overcome them, his excitement and willpower suddenly faded away until he completely lost interest in the business.

I saw myself in a weird place. I had to remind and ask him to do his work and even had to confirm if he was really taking care of his tasks… To make things more complicated, getting in touch with my partner became harder and harder.

We even did reach a point where all he wanted was to get his half of the profits without doing anything!

Lesson learned:Be careful and pay close attention when picking and choosing who to work with. Even if that person is a friend or a relative (like it was, in my case), partnering up with wrong person can make your business fall apart.

Mistake #3: Underestimating the competition.

Sometimes you get in a business simply my measuring your competition and thinking you can do better than them: «it will be nice and easy to overtake these guys.»

You might be right… until you find out that it isn’t always the case.

I had a fair amount of competition* on my product’s niche and I made the mistake to assume that I could beat them easily just by coming out with a better product.

I then set out to develop the best and more up-to-date solution on the market thinking it would be enough to be number one. Oh boy… was I wrong!

To get straight to the point: quality is NOT all it matters.

There are some brands out there that have very loyal followers; even if their products are not that good. It almost feels like a love affair between the customer and their favorite brand. Or just like that brand is the school’s most popular kid.

No matter how hard you try or how good you promote your product, it simply doesn’t work!

Lesson learned:Don’t make the wrong assumption that all it takes to beat your competition is having a better product. Quality is definitely not everything. Emotional attachments and popularity also play a big role in the game.

*In case you’re wondering, my competitors had a different monetization model than me, so they did take some money out of it too.

Conclusion

All in all, I’m not sorry about having made all of these mistakes and errors during my first product attempt. They taught me great lessons I couldn’t have learned otherwise.

You need to see them as learning steps and think positive – they’ll make you stronger.

~ Allan is a SEO guru, internet marketing specialist and web business developer.

Back in 1999, I launched my first major online business UCanBuyArt.com. I had a very Field of Dreams attitude to the internet at that time. I believed if you built it, visitors would come.

After building and launching the site, I realized my mistake when the site had no visitors. To make things worse the money used to build the site was my entire savings. With nothing left to market the site, I was in a difficult situation. This was not my biggest mistake.

Not only were people nervous using their credit cards, but the normal way to buy fine art was to visit a bricks and mortar gallery. People needed to see the paintings before people felt comfortable enough in spending $2000 or 3000.

My site was completely an online shopping experience that offered only small 300 pixel wide images of the products. This was the time AOL and dial-up access so I had to make sure the pages would load up quickly regardless of the person's Internet connect.

So there I was in the worst possible situations with a website no visitors, selling things people weren't comfortable buying online, and at a time when people weren't ready to buy. I probably should have mentioned that I didn't know anything about art or know any artists willing to go on my website.

This online venture was a very big mistake. However, a few months later, I had over 300 artists and several million dollars in inventory and over 2000 visitors/day and a few sales each month.

What turned my horrible situation around was my natural talent for SEO and sheer determination. When I designed the site, I made each page target popular keywords and trained the artists on how to market themselves and the site. The site was able to make money and generate a modest income, but it was a major learning experience for me.

My takeaways from the experience were: Always budget as much for the marketing effort as you put into the web development costs. This is often the biggest mistake others make they put everything into the development, but realize that is only the beginning.

Once built the next step is to promote. Always understand you market and the demand for your product from the very beginning. When I plan to launch a new product or site, I check the Google's keyword planner tool to see how searches there are for that product so I know what the demand is like.

Also, I like at the top ranked sites and use SEMrush to determine how competitive they are, so that I will know how much effort will be required to break into the market space.Ultimately, every mistake even the biggest ones can be good as long as you learn from them and don't repeat them in the future.

~Tor helps online entrepreneurs NETWORK with influencers and position their BRAND so they can attract the right CLIENTS fast. He is an award-winning blogger.

In the start I created a huge course on time management called Time Mastery. It contained everything I knew on time management and it would literally save people several weeks in a year. It helped online entrepreneurs how to become more productive and get more stuff done.

Each module in the course was presented in video (where I was drawing and explaining on a white board), audio and text. In addition, I had worksheets for each module.

It all sounds good so far, right?

The only problem was… that I created the course BEFORE I knew what my audience wanted.

In the end of March, I will be launching an advanced course on how to network with influencers.

And it will contain a step-by-step guide: – How I built genuine relationships and got testimonials from some of the biggest names in the industry, Evan Carmichael, Jon Morrow, Yaro Starak, Jaime Tardy and John Lee Dumas – How I networked with an influencer with 306 000 subscribers on his list – How I used blogger outreach to build an online business that went from zero to $3000 per month in less than 3 months

The course will have limited spots, and I will over-deliver like crazy.

Wrap up

Don´t waste your time on creating a product before you know if there´s a market.

Heck, don´t waste your time one creating a free product before you know there is market.

Learn from my stupid mistakes.

Start using The Pre-Free Technique and you can in a very short time see if your audience are interested in your product.

Instead of looking around at what already was there, “spying” on social networks to see what people are having problems with related to the product I was preparing to launch, I simply created it, prepared a landing page and started to market it with “paid advertising”.

Well, needless to say that it was a total disaster.

Was it all wrong? Not completely, I always see the “bright side” of things. The disastrous results served as a launching pad for me to do things properly the next time. It gave me some important lessons. One of them is what we tend to often overlook. Don't forget the basics.

~ Bradley is the founder of Learn To Blog is a community of passionate entrepreneurs, marketers, visionaries, small business owners who are using blogging to grow their mission online.

The biggest mistake I made in starting to sell my courses online was assuming I knew what my audience wanted instead of asking them what they wanted. It's so easy to think I am my customer and I know what they want.

Many times I would create stuff and waste so much time only to find out that people don't want it.

I made the mistake of trying to make products that appealed to everyone and solved all of their problems. As a result, I confused everybody and no one had a clue what I was really offering. Confused people don't buy.

As a result, I confused everybody and no one had a clue what I was really offering. Confused people don't buy.

Then one day, I shifted from “making my eBooks affordable” to “charging more for the average eBook because I know how to live in Fiji for 4 months as a pro blogger and Bali for a year as a pro blogger.”

Naturally, one should look at what others are charging for some product or service. Then, one should develop a benchmark price. Then, one should charge a bit more. Offer a premium product. You're valuable enough, and your value shared is worth it.

If you don't believe that, your fears will be reflected back to you through the injurious mistake of underpricing your products. You'll attract broke folks. And struggle to make appreciable income. But if you charge a premium, folks will pay for it.

You literally create the market for your product based on your belief in self and in your abilities, and as you see your worth expand, and charge a premium, the Universe mirrors back the belief to you, through folks who'll greedily and happily and gratefully pay the premium to listen to your brilliant, helpful story, and to gobble up the colorful, one-of-a-kind value you have to share with the world.

Most people think that in order to sell something they have to build it first, right?

WRONG!

If you look at the top marketers of our planet – they sell stuff BEFORE building it.

Not only this helps them to validate the idea of a product, but it also pushes them to ship it faster.

That’s exactly what I did with my second plugin.

Instead of spending months to build it just to realise that no one needs it, I announced pre-orders with huge “early adopter” discount (just to see if people are willing to pay for this piece of software).

That is how I landed my first customers before even building the plugin. And I also got some money to pay for it’s development.

So whatever it is that you want to sell – try selling it before you actually build it.

And believe me, that people trusted you their money should really push you towards shipping that product to them as fast as you can.

~ Kim is a full-time internet marketer, a social media addict and blogger.

Wow… We've made so many.

I think many entrepreneurs online try to avoid mistakes. But mistakes are so important. Failure is actually a road you must travel ON the way to success.

There's no getting to success without making mistakes. Without having some failures. Everything you want in life is actually on the other side of failure.

And when it comes to product launches, we've made every mistake in the book. Everything from the shopping cart not working. To students not being able to get access to what they purchased.

In fact, those first few product launches we're a bit like riding a Wild Bull. You just hold on for dear life! You're never quite sure if the Bull is gonna throw you off or kick you straight in the face. But… Over the years, I learned (the hard way) from one product launch after the next.

But one thing that I think people don't often think about as much is the customer experience AFTER they've purchased. What does the customer journey look like after they click the buy button? Because that's when your work has actually just begun.

If I were to travel back in time to my younger self, I would tell her to focus more on the post-purchase experience. This is something that we're continuously working hard to improve in our own business. And it goes WAY beyond the welcome email.

Your first job is to get the customer a “quick win”. What can you teach them in 15-20 minutes to give them an immediate win? Give them a quick win and they will love you for life.

So my first few emails to the customer are focused on getting them to consume the product. And more specifically, to watch a 15-20 minute training that will get them their first quick win.

After that, we focus on getting them engaged in our private Facebook group. Where they can come to ask questions, share their progress, and stay accountable. We also like to hold monthly challenges to keep people engaged and taking action.

Then… a few weeks into the course itself we give them a place where they can share their testimonials / case studies. So we're focusing more on getting them to take action. Versus just overloading them with a ton of content. We want to create transformation. Not just information.

Because the real magic comes when your customers start taking action. And you can create a process that facilitates their success.

If you're worried about nagging your subscribers with reminders, you can also segment your list a bit, and only send the final “Hey, we're closing the cart in two hours” email to the folks who already clicked on your sales page at some point in your promotional period.

That way, you're sending that final reminder ONLY to the people who have already showed some interest in the program, and you're not bothering the folks who aren't interested at all.

So here's the lesson: Make sure you always have open and close periods for your online courses, and don't be afraid to follow-up on the last day to let people know registration is closing. You're missing out on sales if you don't!

I created a cheap ebook that I can sell to people. I just thought that would be awesome for making extra money.

I never thought about the long-term or what I could do with those that bought.

I started to get people on the site through search engines, which means most of my traffic were targeted and converted really, really well.

People started buying the ebook and that was it. I never “really” collected leads through email though I have the email list of buyers. I didn’t even think about what I needed to do next and how to better monetize them. I never even thought about communicating with them. The mindset was just to make a quick buck and that’s the worst mindset to have.

I never even thought about communicating with them. The mindset was just to make a quick buck and that’s the worst mindset to have.

If you are starting out, plan it out and look at the bigger picture. Sure, it’s really motivating to start seeing sales come in but nothing beats a lifetime customer list.

It took leaving lots of money on the table, in the beginning, to realize that following up via email, social media, and advertising–more than I would have ever thought to–would lead to doubling my sales.

Since correcting this mistake, I've come to learn, what many product merchants have said for years, a buyers' list is very, very lucrative and it's imperative to set this up when selling online courses.

In fact, it's so lucrative, often a merchant can lose money on the first sale (i.e. from advertising costs) because the buyers' list is so profitable in the long run assuming they like the course and they're treated well via email.

I'm not very technical, so I opted to use JVZoo as the payment platform; however, I believe most current payment platforms offer options for having buyers added to a dedicated email list.

~ Mike is a content marketing practitioner, blogger and the chief marketing officer at SiteSell. He writes about content marketing, social media and SEO.

I would have to say that my first mistake was to fall into the same trap that has captured so many others, which is to think that all you need to do to sell something online is broadcast links to all your channels.

Because the so-called ‘experts' all said how easy it was to make money online, and suggested that all you need to do is sign up for this or that affiliate program and then share it with your followers, I believed that would work. It took a while for reality to set in.

Using affiliate programs to represent other businesses and share valuable tools and information with your audience is a great idea.

You have to work hard at demonstrating that you're an authority in your niche, and in the process, connect with more and more people who are interested in that niche and recognize your expertise. Once you've done that, you can begin to “sell” to that audience in many ways.

At SiteSell, we refer to this as C=>T=>P=>M, which stands for Content, then Traffic, then PreSell, then monetization. Unfortunately, you can't skip to the end!

So, have an overall plan for your business and work on establishing that value before you try to sell anything at all.

~ Steve is a SEO expert and consultant, president and CEO of Wiideman Consulting Group.

The biggest mistake I made when starting to sell my first course was not partnering with the right influencers.

My response rates on email and on the website were reasonable, but when I see how industry leaders put the promotional responsibility in the hands of personalities who don't even have to sell, I regret not taking the time to nurture those relationships.

Sending marketing communications to marketers is a lot like trying to sell to your peers, both awkward and non-effective.

Getting introduced to a new audience of prospects who have no idea what inbound marketing is could have resulted in a higher response rate.

My advice: before you start selling anything online, build relationships with authoritative leaders with a reach of followers in the millions; hopefully those who are in a similar or broader industry as you're going into. Put them on your board of directors if needed.

For example, if you plan on selling custom handbags, partner with fashion influencers to help light the fire. Influencer networks in this example might include: stylecoalition.com, womensinfluencernetwork.com, and tid.al.

~ Andy is a web strategist and co-founder of Orbit Media. He is also a speaker, content marketer, environmentalist and author.

It took months to gather up my best content and package it up for sale. My plan to promote it was simple, get the big industry influencers on board, so they will share it with their armies of followers.

But I had the worst outreach plan in the history of influencer marketing. It failed on every level.

These days, when I want to get a strong endorsement for a piece of content from a major influencer, I follow (almost) every step on the 35-point online networking checklist. To me, this is the biggest benefit of social media. It's all about connecting with a few people on many social networks, rather than connections with a huge audience on one network.

MISTAKE 8: Not differentiating from the competition and not setting your goals right

~ Brandon has been a WordPress developer for over 5 years and started multiple web-based businesses.

What was my biggest mistake? It’s definitely hard to say because I made so many. But there is one that sticks out the most:

Not differentiating from your competitors.

I see a lot of people release products, courses, and services that are no different from what already exists.

One of my first products was a course: “How To Build A Successful WordPress Website Course”. Within it, I went over the basics of setting up your first site, adding blog posts and pages, choosing a theme, etc.

But there were already tons of courses on the market. And to make it worse, many of them were free.

So I asked myself: “Why would someone choose my course over all the others out there?”

The answer: there was none.

That was a defining moment for me. After that, every business I launched, I would ask myself that same question. And if I didn’t have an answer, I’d pivot.

When I started my current business providing unlimited WordPress support and maintenance, I asked myself that same question: “How am I different from my competitors?”

I even went a step further. I began asking my target market what they were looking for from myself and my competitors.

Over and over again, I heard people tell me they wanted quality work done on their site. And from many in the WordPress support space, they weren’t getting it.

~Vladimir is the Founder & CEO of Company Folders, Inc, an innovative presentation folder company that has won multiple awards, including ranking in Inc. 5000's list of fastest-growing private companies in America in 2015 and 2016. He is a thought leader in print design and has published numerous articles including such publications as Forbes and Times.

We assumed people would naturally share good content, but that wasn't the case. You have to actively promote each blog post to ensure success. In some cases, this means spending money to advertise each post. We also learned you have to stay committed to the process by making each post better than the last. Constantly improving the quality of your posts will help you stay relevant.

What I ended up with was a load of good bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content but nothing that was going to just attract new prospects because it was too product-orientated. I had to rethink the way that I was building out content to start with the needs and problems of my buyer persona and then have a much softer sell into my product(s).

This gave me a wider range of top-of-the-funnel content to help grow my mailing list so that I could then nurture people through to becoming customers.

~ Patrick is the CEO and founder Elite Strategies, a company that provides internet marketing and design services.

What's really funny is that in almost 10 years I've never marketed my own product online. That said, I have launched a number of brands online.

The first being my agency, Elite Strategies. I'd say one of the biggest mistakes I made was not putting the effort into blogging that I am now.

Within the first year I started blogging, we saw an immediate increase in traffic and leads. I didn't realize just how much Google (as well as social networks) love blogging, and waited a few years instead.

A lot of people think they need to have knowledge in order to blog, but truthfully all you need to have is an opinion. People love to read the opinions of other people, especially new people to the field.

Remember, focus on quality, not quantity. Your readers don't want to read as much as possible, they want to read the best content you have.

Once we learned how to go deep into very specific topics and turn existing blogs into multiple formats (email course, infographics, ebooks) and how to build relationships with content, our marketing took off.

Thank you so much to all the experts that contributed to this round-up. Please comment below and share with us what mistakes you've done in launching a product and lessons did you learn from your experience.

If you learned, at least one useful thing, from this post, then give it a share. Let your friends find out about it and help us spread the word.

ABOUT MINUCA ELENA

Minuca is a freelance writer specialized in creating expert roundups. Her posts provide quality content, bring huge traffic and get backlinks. She also helps bloggers connect with influencers. You can contact her at her blog, MinucaElena.com

I'm glad you like this blog, but it's not my blog. I've made a few expert roundups that are posted on this site, but it's not my blog. It's Sue's blog (the beautiful lady with the pink shirt that is on every page). You should read her about page. I'm sure her life story will inspire you in your blogging journey.

Hi MINUCA ELENA .. I am Yogi from Indonesia .. i am glad to see your blog .. your article is very complete .. i like Patrick Coombe,10 years he never marketed his product online that is same with me that i have a lots product on my shop but i never marketed it on website .. so in 2013 i started blogging and sell my product in social media ..